More Crop per Drop.

"Every step towards reducing poverty and achieving broad-based economic growth is a step toward conflict prevention. So too is promotion of human rights, minority rights and institution of inclusive political arrangements. Indeed, there are real risks that resource depletion, especially freshwater scarcities, as well as severe forms of environmental degradation, may increase social and political tensions in unpredictable but potentially dangerous ways."

GLOBAL FRESHWATER consumption rose sixfold between 1900 and 1995--more than twice the rate of population growth. About one third of the world's population already lives in countries considered to be "water stressed"--that is, where consumption exceeds 10% of total supply. If present trends continue, two out of every three people on Earth will live in that condition by 2025.

GROUNDWATER SUPPLIES about one third of the world's population; their unsustainable, but largely unnoticed, exploitation is greater than nature's ability to renew them, particularly in parts of the Arabian Peninsula, China, India, Mexico, the former Soviet Union and the United States.

IN SOME CASES, WATER TABLES are falling by 1 to 3 metres a year. This in a world where 30 to 40% of food production comes from irrigated lands.

THERE IS ALREADY FIERCE national competition over water for irrigation and power generation in some regions, which will likely worsen as populations continue to grow.

THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA are most seriously affected by water scarcity, but so will sub-Saharan Africa over the next half century as its population doubles and even triples.

MORE THAN ONE FIFTH of freshwater fish stocks already is vulnerable or endangered because of pollution or habitat modification.

MORE THAN 1 BILLION PEOPLE lack access to safe drinking-water, while half of humanity lacks adequate sanitation, causing an estimated 80% of all diseases in the developing world. The annual death toll exceeds 5 million, 10 times the number killed in wars, on average, each year. More than half of the victims are children.

NEARLY 2 BILLION HECTARES of land--an area about the combined size of Canada and the United States--is affected by human-induced degradation of soils, putting the livelihoods of nearly 1 billion people at risk. The major culprits are irrigation-induced salinization, soil erosion caused by over-grazing and deforestation, and biodiversity depletion. Annual income foregone has been estimated at more than $40 billion a year.

EACH YEAR an additional 20 million hectares of agricultural land becomes too degraded for crop production or is lost to urban sprawl. Over the next 30 years, the demand for food in developing countries is expected to double. New land can and will be farmed, but much of it is marginal and, therefore, even more highly susceptible to degradation.

What We The Peoples Can Do

Endorse and build upon a set of realistically achievable targets on water and sanitation recommended by the World Water Forum's Ministerial Conference, which met in March 2000.

Adopt the target of reducing by half, between now and 2015, the proportion of people who lack sustainable access to adequate sources of affordable and safe water.

Arrest the unsustainable exploitation of water resources through water-management strategies at national and local levels, which should include pricing structures that promote both equity and efficiency.

Secure land tenures, removing a serious impediment to improved agricultural productivity and soil management.

Maintain increases in farm productivity, boosted by new high-yield plant varieties and a ninefold increase in fertilizer use, which have prevented the Doomsday scenarios of global famine that were predicted in the 1970s;

Ensure that farm productivity does not continue to be at considerable environmental cost.

Recognize that world population is expected to increase by more than 3 billion by 2050, with the biggest growth coming in countries already with the largest number of hungry people and the most stressed farmlands, posing a real threat to future global food security.

Acknowledge that imports from food-surplus countries, an increasingly common practice, is a solution to food production deficits only if the countries and people in need of food have the purchasing power to acquire it.

Remember that, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), no fewer than 82 countries lack those resources.

Bear in mind plant scientists currently are unable to repeat the huge gains in plant yields achieved in recent decades.

Note that land degradation is increasing even as returns from fertilizer application are diminishing in many areas and there are serious constraints on expanding irrigation.

Devising New Strategies

We need a "Blue Revolution" in agriculture that focuses on increasing productivity per unit of water--"more crop per drop"--together with far better watershed and flood plain management. But none of this will happen without public awareness and mobilization campaigns, to bring home to people the extent and causes of current and impending water crises.

Advances in agricultural biotechnology may help developing countries by creating drought-resistant as well as salt-and pest-resistant crop varieties. But the environmental impact of biotechnology has yet to be fully evaluated and many questions, in particular those related to bio-safety, remain to be answered. The Secretary-General announces in his report his intention to convene a high-level global public policy network to address these and related controversies concerning the risks and opportunities associated with the increased use of biotechnology and bioengineering.